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A REPLY TO AN IMITATION OF THE SECOND ODE OF HORACE, by                    
First Line: Who strives to mount parnassus hill
Last Line: Great without patron, rich without south-sea.
Variant Title(s): Verses


Who strives to mount Parnassus hill
And thence poetic laurels bring,
Must first acquire due force and skill,
Must fly with swan's or eagle's wing.

Who Nature's treasures would explore,
Her mysteries and arcana know,
Must high as lofty Newton soar,
Must stoop as searching Woodward low.

Who studies ancient laws and rites,
Tongues, arts, and arms, all history,
Must drudge like Selden days and nights,
And in the endless labour die.

Who travels in religious jars,
(Truth mixed with errors, shade with rays),
Like Whiston, wanting Pyx and stars
In ocean wide or sinks, or stays.

But grant our hero's hopes long toil
And comprehensive genius crown;
All sciences, all arts, his spoil,
Yet what reward or what renown?

Envy, innate in vulgar souls,
Envy steps in and stops his rise;
Envy with poisoned tarnish fouls
His lustre, and his worth decries.

Inglorious, or by wants enthralled,
To College and old books confined,
A pedant for his learning called,
Dunces advanced, he's left behind;
Yet left content, a genuine Stoic he,
Great without patron, rich without South-Sea.





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